Special News Section

Just Confirmed! Research Faculty Reception/Informational Session to be held on Oct. 22. See Full Announcement Below

New Online Research Database

The Office of the Vice President for Research and Department of Information Technology are pleased to announce a new web-based database system that is available to all of the University community. The purpose of this system is to identify and record faculty research interests and expertise, and for delivery of available funding opportunities. Specifically, this shared resource is available to everyone at SBU, with easy navigation and one-stop access to the research interests, job history, publications and grants of all faculty and/or researchers. We are asking that every researcher on campus please complete or update their records. In the coming weeks and months, as the percentage of completed profiles increases, we expect that this database will be an extremely useful tool in identifying potential collaborators.

The second important feature of this system is the new Funding Opportunities web site. As our office collects funding opportunities each week from a variety of sources, we add them into the database, assigning to each a selection of disciplines and keywords. If the assigned keywords match those you’ve indicated in your profile, you will receive an automated weekly email providing you with the critical elements of the opportunity (sponsor, opportunity title, funding amounts, deadlines, synopsis, etc.) that you can click on and explore. Also, as a way of encouraging multidisciplinary collaboration, you’ll see the names, email addresses and phone numbers of all other faculty who also matched the specific funding opportunity, and you’ll be able to click on their profiles to learn more about them.

The following links will take you to the database (and you can navigate among the functions):
http://www.stonybrook.edu/researchinterests or http://www.stonybrook.edu/fundingopportunities. To access it, you simply need your SBU net ID and password (this can be found in SOLAR [click here for instructions]).

Please feel free to explore the features of this database. Remember, it is important that each faculty member and/or researcher complete his/her profile in order to fully benefit from this service.

Finally, we are very interested in visiting your department during a faculty meeting to demonstrate the database and show you some of its features. Please contact Stefanie Massucci at smassucci@notes.cc.sunysb.edu or 632-8589 to schedule a demo.

Essential Policy and Procedure Updates

Office of Research Compliance (ORC) to Utilize IRBNet

The Office of Research Compliance (ORC) is pleased to announce that we have signed on to utilize the IRBNet web-based system of electronic tools to support the management, submission, review and administration of IRB protocols. Some of IRBNet’s many features include web-based protocol sharing and collaboration, automatic notifications, electronic submissions and reviews, and important audit capabilities including electronic revision histories, electronic signatures and event tracking. Pending success of the IRB aspect of the program, we will also be able to take advantage of the integrated functionality of the IACUC and IBC tools of IRBNet.

This month, ORC will be working with IRBNet to ensure an accurate and seamless transition to this paperless system. An announcement will go out shortly thereafter to our campus community regarding available training materials and websites, in-person training (if so desired), and simple self-registration instructions. Also provided will be the dates for deadlines after which all submissions will need to be provided electronically to the IRB. We are confident that you will find IRBNet to be extremely intuitive and easy to use.

During the next year we will also be participating in the development of the COEUS system for electronic proposal internal routing and submission to grants.gov (and other electronic systems as available). COEUS also has an IRB submission module and when that capability is available formal comparison will be made between the two systems for IRB processes and one of the two systems will be chosen by representatives of all relevant parties (IRB administrators, IRB members, and IRB investigators).

--If you have any questions please contact Judy Matuk, AVP, Research Compliance, at 2-9036 or via email at Judy.Matuk@stonybrook.edu

Proposals Submitted by Deans or VP's through the Research Foundation Require VPR's Endorsement

Deans and Vice-Presidents serving as investigators or participating faculty submitting proposals through The Research Foundation of SUNY must have their 4 page forms, Conflict of Interest Declarations, and Investigator Disclosure forms (if required) endorsed by Gail Habicht, VP for Research as “Dean” before they can be completely processed by the Office of Sponsored Programs. Should anyone have any questions, please contact Ivar Strand, AVP, Sponsored Programs, at 2-4402 or via email:
IStrand@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

Outreach Office Change: SOM’s Office of Scientific Affairs (OSA) Assumes Responsibility for Providing Dean’s Review of Externally Funded Grant and Contract Proposals

Pursuant to a directive from Richard Fine, Dean, School of Medicine (SOM) effective September 4, 2007, the SOM's Office of Scientific Affairs (OSA) will be assuming responsibility for providing the Dean's Review of externally funded grant and contract proposals. Therefore, the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) will no longer be staffing the Outreach Office. Ms. Elaine Dunn from OSA will be your point of contact for all proposals to be submitted through the Research Foundation. The SOM will continue to provide a courier service for proposals submitted through the Dean's Office requiring OSP sign-off on West Campus. In summary, Elaine Dunn will be coordinating the Dean's review of proposals: the Research Foundation will be conducting its reviews on West Campus. The transition is expected to be transparent to principal investigators and departmental administrators. The Office of Sponsored Programs has enjoyed this collaborative effort over the last 10 years and we wish OSA and SOM every success with this new endeavor. We also look forward to working with Elaine in this new capacity.

Should anyone have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Ivar Strand at 2-4402, or via e-mail at IStrand@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

Reminder Regarding NSF Annual Technical Reports

NSF annual technical reports are due 90 days prior to each year’s anniversary date. Projects coming to term that receive a no-cost extension will still require an annual progress report 90 days before the end of the committed project period and then a final technical report at the end of the no-cost extension period. Questions or concerns should be addressed to your Sponsored Programs Coordinator.

NSF's New Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide

The Guide consolidates two previous standalone NSF policy documents: the NSF Grant Proposal Guide (GPG) and the Grant Policy Manual (GPM) and combines them into a single electronic policy framework.   The Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide will be effective for proposals submitted on or after June 1, 2007.  This document supersedes all prior versions of the GPG and GPM and can be accessed at: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf07140. 
The new guide increases ease of access to the policies and procedures that govern the entire grant lifecycle and eliminates duplicative and sometimes truncated coverage between the GPG and GPM.   

The Guide has two parts:

Part I - NSF’s proposal preparation and submission guidelines – the NSF Grant Proposal Guide and the NSF Grants.gov Application Guide (to be incorporated at a later date).
Part II - Documents to guide, manage and monitor the administration of awards The Grant Policy Manual has been renamed the Award & Administration Guide (AAG).

Each Part contains a by-Chapter summary of significant changes to assist the user in navigating through the changes.   

The document is available as a fully Web-linked and searchable PDF version which gives users the ability to print either Parts of the Guide or the document in its entirety and in HTML. If you have any questions regarding the new NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide, please contact the Policy Office on 703-292-8243 or by e-mail to policy@nsf.gov .

Grants.gov Extends Transition Time for Agencies

Although originally targeting the end of FY2007 to have all agencies transitioned to the new Adobe-based forms, Grants.gov has extended the time provided to agencies to fully transition to the new format into 2008. The additional time allows Grants.gov to complete the development and testing of the new forms and provides agencies with greater flexibility in how they approach the transition. NIH’s transition to the Adobe forms remains on hold while waiting for Grants.gov to finalize the SF424 (R&R) form set. Progress will be reported through electronic submission listservs. Once transition plans are finalized, formal announcements also will be posted in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts and in the NIH Extramural Nexus.

NIH - Office of Extramural Research Website

Approximately 85% of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) $28 billion budget is dedicated to its extramural research program (research funded by NIH and conducted at other research institutions throughout the US and abroad). The NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER) supports extramural research by providing policy and guidance to the 24 NIH Institutes and Centers that award grants. If you are new to the NIH grants process, learning all the ins and outs can be a daunting task. To provide a comprehensive view of NIH policies and procedures, the OER recently redesigned the OER Grants Web Site to include:

If you have any interest in NIH grant opportunities, take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the resources available on this updated site. Comments, suggestions, and feedback should be sent to the content or technical contacts listed at the bottom of each Web page or to GrantsInfo@nih.gov.

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Funding Opportunities

NSF: Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) 2008

The Directorate for Engineering at the National Science Foundation has established the Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) to fund research opportunities that would be difficult to fund with the current funding mechanisms of Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER), typical core awards, or large research center awards. It is expected that EFRI support will represent higher risk opportunities with high potential payoffs leading to new research directions, potential new industries or capabilities that result in a leadership position for the country, or significant progress on a national need or grand challenge.

EFRI is launching a new funding opportunity for interdisciplinary teams of researchers to embark on rapidly advancing frontiers of fundamental engineering research. NSF will consider proposals that aim to investigate emerging frontiers in the following two specific research areas: (1) Cognitive Optimization and Prediction: From Neural Systems to Neurotechnology (COPN) and (2) Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructures (RESIN).

Cognitive Optimization and Prediction: From Neural Systems to Neurotechnology (COPN) - This EFRI topic provides partnership opportunities for engineers and neuroscientists to address two goals:
·  to understand how massively parallel circuits in brains address complex tasks in adaptive optimal decision-making and prediction, and to understand the system identification circuits in the brain which help make it possible.
·  to use this understanding to develop new general-purpose designs or algorithms for optimal decision-making over time, or prediction, or both, powerful enough to work existing benchmark challenges in simulation or in physical testbeds taken from engineering.

Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructures (RESIN) - Infrastructures, such as drinking water and wastewater treatment systems; energy generation, transmission, and distribution; chemical production and distribution; communications; transportation; agriculture and food; and public health networks, are critical to our nation’s welfare, security, and ability to compete in a global economy. Researchers should take an integrative approach to address interdependent infrastructure modeling and engineering science for resiliency and sustainability in the context of specific interdependent critical infrastructures. The overall goal of this topic area is to transform the nation’s capacity to build, renew, expand, monitor, and control critical interdependent infrastructures to be both resilient and sustainable.

September 25 is the receipt date for required Letters of Intent. Preliminary proposals are due October 26. Invited full proposals will be due April 30, 2008. The official announcement and description of this opportunity may be found on NSF’s website

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf07579/nsf07579.htm

Upcoming Funding Opportunities

For a complete list of upcoming deadlines, please go to -
http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/fndopp/deadlcal.html

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News and Events

News

$6 Million for National Security

Researchers in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences are to receive a total of $6.1 million to develop advanced new national security technologies. A team led by Distinguished Professor and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering Serge Luryi, who also directs the New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Sensor Systems, has received $682,000 as the first phase of a prospective DOD award of $4 million over five years to develop a radiation detector with superior isotope identification and directional capability. Current state of the art detectors intended to prevent the smuggling of a “dirty bomb” yield many false positives because they cannot distinguish harmful from benign radiation nor tell where it is coming from. The new detection technology, based on principles of optoelectronics that underlie all semiconductor lasers, builds on preliminary work supported by NYSTAR in the Sensor CAT as well as a Stony Brook-Brookhaven seed grant.

A Computer Science collaboration of Scott Stoller, R. Sekar and C.R. Ramakrishnan won a $2.1 million grant under the DOD Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) – one of only four awarded nationally in cyber-security and the only one of the 36 MURI awards to a single institution.  Targeted cyber-attacks, whether truly malicious or merely irritating, often exploit the process of trusting information received from external systems. Most computer systems lack the means to correlate the trustworthiness of specific data elements with the security privileges involved in processing it, potentially opening the door to corrupting or compromising invasions. The service-oriented architecture of large software systems will make it possible for this project to address the security problem in a variety of systems from operating systems to large application software.

Size Matters

Professor David Conover, Dean of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, was featured in Conservation Magazine's "10 Solutions to Save the Oceans" feature. His article on the logic of fish harvesting strategies was deemed one of the "10" best ideas that would help to save the health of our world's oceans. In the article Conover points out that new research has shown that the traditional strategy of keeping only the largest fish and throwing back all under a certain size might be having detrimental effects on fish populations and affecting fish evolution in a more direct way than previously thought. According to research by Conover and others, harvesting only the largest fish produced subsequent generations that were both smaller and genetically inferior. Furthermore the effects of fish harvesting were shown to be having dramatic effects within only a few generations, contradicting the prevailing opinion that harvesting strategies would only show evolutionary effects over extremely long periods of time.

Stony Brook Technology Wins 2007 R&D 100 Award

Directwrite ProcessTechnology conceived and initially developed at Stony Brook University has received a prestigious R&D 100 Award from R&D magazine. Jointly developed with Stony Brook based spin-off MesoScribe Technologies, this materials deposition technology referred to as Direct Write Thermal Spray allows range of sensors, novel antennas, and electronic circuits to be deposited onto complex components and survive extremely high temperatures, enabling applications in gas turbines, aircraft and other harsh environments. Described as “the Oscars of Invention” by the Chicago Tribune, the R&D 100 awards are given to the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace in the last year.

“The Direct Write System is a breakthrough in maskless patterning of thick film materials for novel electronics and sensor applications”, said Prof. Sanjay Sampath, Stony Brook Professor and Co-Inventor. The basic technology was developed under a DARPA-funded program at Stony Brook University and licensed to MesoScribe Technologies in 2003 for further enhancement and commercial development. The DARPA MICE program (for Mesoscopic Integrated Conformal Electronics) sought to develop revolutionary material deposition technologies for maskless 3D printing of mesoscale devices onto a range of substrates at low substrate temperature. MesoScribe has since significantly enhanced the product’s capabilities and now commercializing both the system and products made from Direct Write for aerospace, power generation, and military markets. The unique capabilities derived from the technology allows for novel applications that would not be possible through traditional manufacturing methods.

Stony Brook award recipients include Prof Sanjay Sampath and Prof.Richard Gambino of the Materials Science Department and Prof.Jon Longtin of the Mechanical Engineering department. Collaborators from MesoScribe include Robert Greenlaw, and Dr. Jeffrey Brogan.

(Photo above is of the Direct Write Thermal Spray Process. Image Courtesy of Mesoscribe Technologies)

Computer Science Researcher Receives $700K in NSF Grants

Professor Radu Sion has received two NSF grants to study data integrity in software ($500K) and to build the Stony Brook Trusted Hardware Laboratory ($200K), which will function as a repository of information and expertise on secure hardware.

NBC Coverage of MSRC Sea Grant Funded Study

An NBC segment on a New York Sea Grant funded project, "Estrogen Mimics in Jamaica Bay and the Effects on Winter Flounder", featuring Stony Brook researchers Anne McElroy and Bruce Brownawell and Sea Grant director Jack Mattice, aired Wednesday evening, July 25, and can be found at the following link:
WNBC-TV
Female Flounders Rule in Jamaica Bay
http://video.wnbc.com/player/?id=133971

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Events

Stony Brook Human Evolution Symposium
"Tracking the Earliest Bipeds"
September 25

Convened by Richard Leakey, the 4th Annual Human Evolution Symposium is a full-day event featuring many of the foremost scholars in the field. The 2007 Symposium focuses on the early hominids that changed the way paleoanthropologists thought about evolution.

For more information please visit: www.stonybrook.edu/sb/humanevolution/

Celebratory 20th Anniversary Humanities Institute Conference
"Cosmopolitanism and Globalization: Memory-Spaces-Cities-Images"
October 10-13

The conference seeks to "interrogate the usefulness of cosmopolitanism as a concept for understanding and contributing to our current historical, cultural and political movement." For more information, a list of participants and a schedule please visit: www.stonybrook.edu/humanities/conferences.shtml

New Research Faculty Informational Seminar/Reception
October 22

The Office of the Vice President for Research will be hosting an informational seminar/reception, including refreshments, on Monday, October 22, 4 – 6 pm in the small ballroom of the Student Activities Center (SAC Ballroom B). This seminar is open to all research faculty interested in meeting their colleagues and learning about the resources, policies and procedures available to conduct research at Stony Brook University. Department heads from Research Resources, Economic Development, Sponsored Programs, Grants Management, Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Research, Compliance and Technology Licensing & Industry Relations will be discussing the research grant process from start to finish and will be available to answer any questions you may have.

Reservations WILL BE REQUIRED in order to plan accordingly. Please RSVP by October 11 with your name, department and phone number to Kathy Green at 632-7932 or via email at Kathleen.Green@StonyBrook.edu.

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For More Information

Gail S. Habicht is Vice President for Research. She can be reached at (631) 632-7932. An abundance of specific information for the research community is available on our website, where past issues of this bulletin can also be found.

Office of the Vice President for Research -
http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/

Research News and Monday Memo archive - http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/monmemo/mmarchive.html

All Past issue of Research News and Monday Memo are keyword searchable. The index can be accessed at - http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/sitemap.html.

If you have information you would like to contribute to Research News please email it to the editor, Ann-Marie Scheidt, at amscheidt@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

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